We're All There
by Aevium
Summary: Relieving Sanji's watch turns rather complicated when Zoro discovers him crying in his sleep. Zoro Sanji nakamaship one shot. Rated T for swearing.


**AN:** Written for a question I received on Tumblr about Zoro's reaction upon discovering Sanji crying in canon. I took it as a prompt because it was so inspiring and such an interesting topic to tackle. I do think that the most IC thing for Zoro to do in such a situation is walk away and leave Sanji alone, but I tried to make this as IC as I could.

**_we're all there_**

He wasn't hungry for the same reasons this time as he sat perched on that rock, emancipated, still a child of bones, destitute and alone. It wasn't his stomach that felt empty, but instead his heart. He gazed out onto the shimmering sea, longing, wishing to believe that he wasn't being hopelessly romantic and what he knew inside was true. That that blue connected to his sea of dreams somewhere and that he was destined to find it.

Below him on that great expanse of water, there was a duplicate sun on the ocean, a ship full of dreamers who had dreamed and found everything they were looking for. His crew was accomplished; his crew was actualized. His captain was a king. But who was he?

He was just a sailor without a compass and a squandered dream.

They were sailing on without him, leaving him behind on this barren rock, starved of his dream. The realization came all to him at once. His heart throbbed as he stood, shaky on his feet, and stumbled forward.

"Come back..." he whispered in disbelief.

He didn't feel his hands go up, it was so visceral. He shook them tentatively at first—was this really happening to him? _please, no, don't leave me here, don't leave me behind_—before he tore the air apart with desperate waves of his boney arms.

_I want to go with you!_

He couldn't be here again, wasting his life away. He couldn't be a child anymore.

"Come back!" he called, tears pouring down all at once. The igneous bedrock under his bare feet shook and trembled with his wails.

"Come back! I'm right _here!_ _Come back, Luffy!"_

Someone was shaking him and it was then that he opened his eyes with a jolt. His heartbeat was wild, his eyes wide, then wider when he saw Zoro's face. He'd been sleeping.

He sniffed, his nose dripping. And crying too, apparently.

_Fuck,_ he inwardly cursed. _This is so embarrassing. _

Zoro's hand disappeared from his shoulder as Sanji reached for his nose and cheeks with his sleeve.

Zoro had merely come up to the crow's nest to take over the cook's shift. He'd never expect to find Sanji crying in his sleep. Not wanting to intrude and not knowing how even if he wanted to, Zoro cut straight to the point.

"Your shift's over, cook."

Sanji's response was cursory and quick while he tried to rub the moisture from his face as inconspicuously as possible. "Yeah, I – yeah, I know, shithead. Don't sleep on the job."

Zoro, while still surprised, scowled down at him. "You're one to talk."

The cook shook his head, clearly not wanting to have anything to do with the swordsman right now and hastily stood. His feet roared on the floor as he stalked over to the ladder.

Zoro looked back at him with a calm yet piercing expression. It was none of his business, but he found comfort in knowing that every member of his crew were healthy and stable, even Sanji. If anything, it was a duty to his captain to be sure of this.

As he turned to climb down, Sanji faced Zoro and caught his glance. They shared a quiet moment and Sanji was taken back to the memory of Zoro's hardened glare stained by blood, his own hand clutching the swordsman's shoulder before consciousness slipped from his grasp. Zoro, always so sure of who he was and who he was going to be, had been so quick to give up everything that day.

So had Sanji, of course, but on different levels. Beyond his desire—no, his _instinct _to protect his captain and his crew, he knew how much of a waste it would've been to see Zoro and his dream simply vanish like that. It was much more fitting for Sanji's dream to be wasted. But still, amidst these thoughts, at the heart of it was the fact that Zoro knew what it felt like to give up his dream; to face the reality of it not be realized.

To be left behind.

The words escaped his mouth before he could catch them. "Do you ever..." he stared down at the curvature of the ladder's handles before tilting his gaze to Zoro across the crow's nest. "...wonder what'll happen to you if you..." he ripped his eyes away, placing a hand to his brows. "Shit," he smiled nervously, "_why_ am I asking you this...?"

The sleep-drowsiness must not have left him yet.

Zoro was honestly shocked that the cook had said anything at all; that he was still standing there, even. "Spit it out, cook," he demanded.

Sanji seriously debated simply calling Zoro a fuckhead and gliding down the ladder at lightning speed, but he was being held back by the desire to speak what he was thinking. He _wanted_ to say something. And fuck Zoro and his stupid emotional walls. Fuck Zoro if he didn't want to hear it. Sanji had a question for him and the shitty swordsman was going to listen because they were shipmates who'd been sailing together long enough to warrant this kind of conversation.

His words were as fired up as his mind. "What the fuck will you do if you don't become the world's greatest swordsman?"

The question ran a little deep, deeper than Zoro had expected it would. It really made him curious as to what exactly was going through the cook's mind. His response was simple and stern: "Keep training."

"Your whole life?"

Zoro's lack of a reply or gesture made that question, in retrospect, seem like the stupidest thing in the world to Sanji now.

"Well, this _is_ you we're talking about here..." he murmured. "But what if it just doesn't happen?"

"Then my dream doesn't happen."

"Just like that, huh?"

"Why would you even ask?" Zoro smirked. He might have received a glimpse of what the problem was. "You worried about what you're here for or something, cook?"

Dammit. He couldn't stand to look at Zoro's smug face any longer. "Just watch the ship, asshole," Sanji spouted. With that, he placed the sole of his shoe onto the ladder's metal bar and began his descent.

"I hope you know I think you're crazy."

This caused Sanji to pause and look up, Zoro's shoulders and face still visible over the hatch. "What?" For that one word, the irritation in his tone was almost palpable.

"Insane, actually," Zoro went on. "Wanting to find some stupid ocean you read about in books or overheard loopy old sailors talking about."

"You _want_ me to come back up there and kick your ass?" Sanji threatened, his voice menacingly low. Another ridiculer, great. Like he needed that right now.

"I know you guys think I'm insane, but that's quite possibly the craziest, gutsiest reason to become a pirate that I've ever heard."

Sanji's anger faltered and he didn't quite know what to do with himself and his stalled emotions after absorbing what he'd just heard. In this roundabout delivery, was Zoro... complimenting him? Impressed, even?

"So what will _you_ do if you don't find All Blue?" Zoro bluntly asked, not waiting for Sanji's reaction.

Sanji's mouth opened, then closed shut, then parted again. "Keep looking, I guess..."

"If you don't ever find it?" the swordsman continued to press.

"Then it won't happen."

It was a harsh reality for an idealist like Sanji. Zoro had already accepted that his dream was finite. And while the nature of their dreams, of everybody's on this ship, were varied, they were all limited. Zoro's was limited to his strength, while Sanji's was limited to the ubiety of it. So this was why it seemed so easy for Zoro to give it up, because he had already given it up.

It wasn't as though Sanji didn't already know this, but sometimes, his own insecurities made it far too easy for him to forget.

"We're all in the same boat, cook. Don't think you're so special; that the rest of us don't have doubts," the swordsman reinforced. "But isn't that why we're pirates in the first place?"

Sanji smirked as he climbed down, knowing that the idiot swordsman couldn't see him. Zoro was an emotional retard, but he definitely knew how to punch the uncertainties straight out of a person, through and through.

"Fall asleep up there, marimo, and I'll boot your swords into the sea! All three of them!" he shouted up, unable to help his splitting grin as the night's wind played with his hair.

Zoro's irritated voice chaffed back: "Do that and I'll drown you 'til you find them, shit-cook!"


End file.
